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Monday, February 3, 2014

Re-animation, a precarious subject at best; yet one of the
holy grails of science and long has it also been one of the staples of science fiction.

When you hear the word “re-animation” images of
Frankenstein or the cult hit Re-Animator
may come to mind, but real science and a bit (a large bit) of speculation has fueled
this topic for generations.

The idea is simple; re-animate dead tissue to make it
alive again. In the movies and on TV this has had mixed results. Sometimes the
organism being re-animated comes back altered or crazy or some kind of monster.
This latter point was well established since the days of the original Frankenstein film of 1931. And we have
seen horrific manifestations of this idea in the form of zombies more recently
and perhaps notably.

However, all of that put aside for just a moment, it is
important to point out that real efforts, if not perhaps misguided, are in the
works to re-animate humans after death, thus achieving some kind of human initiated
resurrection. The idea for this is also rather simple, on paper; in reality it
is much more difficult.

This is the science of cryonics. The idea that one can
die, be frozen in a specific manner with the hopes that at some later date when
medical science has caught up and found a cure for what killed them (and a way
of reversing the freezing process too) the person can be thawed, operated on and
revived.

There are some issues with this, however, the process of
freezing damages the body. Because of this any frozen person would be forced to
also wait for a cure for the process that is supposedly allowing them a chance
at a second life. Also still, the process of death itself is still somewhat of
a mystery. When does death actually occur? People considered “brain dead” today
may be still within reach of saving in the future as life-intervention
technologies improve.

Another question that comes to mind, is if it is possible
to be revived, assuming all of the technical problems are resolved, what will
the world be like upon your revival; hundreds or perhaps thousands of years
later? Would it be worth coming back for?

Also and perhaps most troubling is the question, if your
cause of death requires substantial medical advances to reverse, perhaps
hundreds of years’ worth, will the facility housing your frozen corpse still be
in existence in the future making your body available to be thawed and thus
re-animated at all?

While other metaphysical questions also linger, perhaps
the biggest questions and problems with the science of cryonics is the science itself
or lack thereof. In truth, cryonics is an unproven science, at least in terms
of reviving whole living organisms. Anybody choosing to put themselves on ice does
so with their fingers crossed.

But then again, you never know. The future can
potentially be an amazing place; perhaps someday people will be thawed and
cured in time to meet their descendants at some kind of strange family reunion
in the distant future. Time will only tell.

Learn more about what Isaac Hulke and Jacob O’Neal are up to by visiting any of the links below; including Isaac’s new book series Tales of Cydonia and Jacob’s past and upcoming film projects including Lepus and Terrestrial. And don't forget to check out Lepus now available on the new DVD Death by VHS.Isaac

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

A wormhole, also known as an “Einstein–Rosen bridge,” is
a theoretical “tunnel” though the fabric of space and time.

While it’s easy to imagine space as being empty and time
as being a non-corporeal abstract concept consisting of just a straight line; it
would be more accurate to imagine both as a tangible essence that can be
manipulated, bent or otherwise cut though, like a “fabric.”

In theory, a wormhole would act as a kind of shortcut
though space and time. Allowing a traveler the opportunity to journey from
point A to point B in far less time than if they attempted to cross the expanse
of space in a craft; also, a wormhole would potentially allow for the
possibility for time-travel.

While no observational evidence for wormholes yet exists,
the reality of wormholes is implied by Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
Still, even with a lack of imperial evidence, that has not stopped the world of
sci-fi from making it a staple of storytelling.

In fiction, wormholes have manifested themselves in the plotlines
of Star Trek, Stargate, Farscape, the Conduit video game franchise for the
Nintendo Wii and even the bizarre Disney movie The Black Hole. Even an aspect of wormhole-style time-travel will
be making an appearance in my second book due out early this year; Tales of Cydonia: Volume Two.

Conceptually and theoretically there are two basic types
of wormholes: a conduit through space or a conduit though both space and time. Of
these you have “fixed” and “non-fixed” wormholes; a conduit in which one of
more entry points are not fixed to one spot in space, as the end or ends drift
from point to point. Or a stable wormhole in which both entry points do not
move.

In fiction wormholes have been portrayed as both a naturally
occurring phenomenon as well as artificial.

But the real question is would you go? If you could
travel through a wormhole safely would you, even if you did not know what was
on the other side or if you could ever come back, would you do it?

Someday wormhole travel may become commonplace, for both space
travel as well as time-travel as it has been suggested that wormholes would be
needed to successfully travel through time; allowing a time-traveler the opportunity
to get around the time-traveling limitations imposed by the theory of
relativity and wormholes would also allow the exploration of the universe in
ways conventional craft would never be able to achieve.

So, whether it’s an ancient artifact in which you are
transported to a distant planet where alien beings obsessed with Egyptian architecture
rule; or you are protecting a wormhole floating just beyond the orbit of a
planet called Bajor or you are using the Wii to fight off aliens coming at you
through conduits leading to other dimensions; what is sci-fi today, becomes
tomorrow's reality.

Are you ready?

Sincerely,

Isaac Hulke

PSDon’t forget to
stay in the loop with all the happenings with The Science of Fiction by visiting our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/SciFiPod

Learn more about what Isaac Hulke and Jacob O’Neal are up
to by visiting any of the links below; including Isaac’s new book series Tales of Cydonia and Jacob’s past and
upcoming film projects including Lepus
and Terrestrial. And don't forget to
check out Lepus now available on the
new DVD Death by VHS.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

In the latest episode of The Science Of Fiction Jacob and Isaac both
seem a bit punchy. Sure, they could blame the holidays or having to
record in Jacob's bedroom with the dog. But it was none of those things.
They just weren't prepared.

They attempt to fill an hour talking about wormholes wherein Isaac talks
a lot about Star Trek and Jacob makes fun of him. They both forget to
discuss the great series Farscape that was very much about wormholes and
one of Jacob's all time favorites. Listen at your own risk. It may be a
train wreck but hopefully it's an entertaining one.

Click here to listen or right click and choose "Save As..." to download.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Jacob and Isaac are back, this time talking about parallel universes.
They also spend some time talking about Isaac's book (available now from
Amazon) and Jacob's upcoming short film, Terrestrial. But they try to
keep on the subject they came to talk about as much as they can. Sorry
for the audio quality. They recorded in Jacob's bedroom.

Click here to listen or right click and choose "Save As..." to download.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

In a parallel universe, right now, you are reading this
same article. Well, to be precise it’s not you, it’s your doppelgänger, your
counterpart, someone who looks like you and is perhaps you in every way except
for small differences.

The
article the “other you” is reading may be slightly different too, maybe the grammar
is different (or better), and maybe the sentence structure is different as well,
if not just by one word or even a single letter.

Welcome
to the perplexing possibilities of parallel universes. The reasoning for why
there might be other universes is diverse, but the idea, however broad, is at
its core beautifully simple. Our universe, is but one of perhaps trillions of
other realities all of which are branching off from one another.

How
this would be accomplished is still being debated and the imperial evidence for
other universes is still zero, but perhaps only for now. If mathematical formulas
like the kind behind Super String Theory proved correct, the “multi-verse”
would be a natural consequence of that.

If
the multi-verse is true, then what this would mean is that there are many universes,
each with their own history. Some would have histories very similar to our own universe
admittedly completely the same except for the placement of a single atom. While
others would be so different the laws of physics would be completely strange to
us, forever prohibiting the formation of planets, stars, galaxies and life; and
others still would possess any possible history range in between.

Another
consequence of a multi-verse is that some of these universes would be inhabited
by people, some who are just like you, but perhaps only lived different lives.
In another reality, you became president, married a super model, won the
lottery or became a heroin addict. It really makes you think and perhaps even
in some fundamental way thinking about such things make us take stock the
decisions we did make in this universe and appreciate the decisions we got
right all the more.

Other
possibilities exist as well. If other universes prove real we might be able to
communicate with its inhabitants, human or otherwise. One suggestion in how
this could be accomplished would be the use of gravitational waves as a medium,
in a similar way radio waves are utilized in conveying information.

So
the question remains, would you communicate with your doppelgänger? Ask him/her
how their life turned out, for better or worse? Would you travel to another
universe? If so, would you do it for profit or out of curiosity? Or perhaps you
would not want to know anything about another universe, its alternate history
and the potential horrors lurking there.

Alternate
realities have been a staple of sci-fi for many decades going back to even the
early days of the Twilight Zone and
more recently possessing incarnations such as The One and the Star Trek
rebooted franchise. Even the book series I am authoring, Tales of Cydonia, relies heavily on the idea of different histories,
alternate realities and even other planes of existence.

So
whether or not you believe the multi-verse is real or perhaps for you it just
makes good entertainment, fear not! Hollywood will never give up on the idea
even if science someday does.

But
who knows, maybe you don’t believe in parallel universe, here in this space and
time, but in some far off place, your other self is reading this same or similar
article and in that time and place, you do.

Learn more about what Isaac Hulke and Jacob O’Neal are up
to by visiting any of the links below; including Isaac’s new book series Tales of Cydonia and Jacob’s past and
upcoming film projects including Lepus and
Terrestrial. And don't forget to
check out Lepus now available on the
new DVD Death by VHS.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Out of the 200 established branches of mainstream science
the field of cryptozoology seems to be having trouble fitting in. Some would
say that is because it is not real “science” to begin with, but of course all
of the sciences started out as such, all were at one point on the “fringe”
before gaining acceptance.

Remember that annoying idea that the Earth was NOT the
center of the universe? Yeah, even that caught on eventually.

For those who may not know, “cryptozoology” is the study
and search of animals that are rumored to exist. You have your more colorful
examples: Big Foot, Nessie and one of my favorites… the chupacabra (aka the
goat sucker), but you also have a treasure chest full of “normal” animals; many
of which have been verified and have been added to science’s record of animal
kingdom species.

And there still is a lot of work to be done! To date
about 1.3 million species have been discovered and cataloged, with another 7.4
million (not including bacteria) left to go according to some estimates. These
estimates include all species, not just animals, but it shows that there is
plenty out there left to explore. In fact base on the 8.7 total million species
on our planet, it has been said it will take researchers another 1000 years
before they finish cataloging them all.

OK, but what about Big Foot and the rest like him!? Well,
new evidence is always turning up even though FOX News and CNN will not report
it because they are too busy reporting who is shacking up with who, who is
stealing from who or which politicians are currently lying (try all of them).
But there really is new and old evidence out there on the books.

Geneticist and Professor Bryan Sykes recently found DNA
evidence for the existence of the Yeti. He concluded that it perhaps was a
species that descended from that of an ancient polar bear instead of some kind
of ape. This is perhaps what the people where seeing all along. Still, that
means the Yeti was real after all, just a little different than what the hype
made it out to be. Still just as cool!

But the mother of all cryptids would be Mokele Mbembe,
the dinosaur-like creature reported to inhabit the swamps of central Africa.
Don’t laugh. The indigenous tribal people have been shown pictures of animals
both indigenous to Africa and some that were not. The ones that were not from
Africa they had trouble identifying, but when shown a picture of a sauropoda
dinosaur, it was identified at least part of the time as “Mokele Mbembe” and
regarded with fear.

Many expeditions have been launched in search of the
creature with mix results but the stories still persist, going back as far as
1776 when a French missionary witnessed huge footprints allegedly made by the
creature. There was even a 1985 movie based on Mokele Mbembe called Baby:
Secret of the Lost Legend.

So how can Mokele Mbembe or any other ancient beast still
be around after all this time? Good question. In the case of Mokele Mbembe it
is said to inhabit the Lake Tele region, one of the most treacherous on Earth and
difficult to navigate by humans. But then of course there are many species that
have been enduring for millions of years with little change which we don’t give
a second thought too: alligators, ants, sharks, jelly fish and even some
species of plants…

The coelacanth is another example. It was thought extinct
for 400 million years until a near genetic copy of it was found alive and
intact in 1938 off the cost of southern Africa. In fact, I have had the
privilege of seeing a preserved coelacanth body at the California Academy of
Sciences during my visit to that museum in 2010.

So to all of you out there, who believe in the cryptids,
don’t lose the faith! The search goes on, why? Because we humans have the need
to explore and many of the cryptids of our world have already been found only
giving us the excitement to go on!

Learn more about what Isaac Hulke and Jacob O’Neal are up
to by visiting any of the links below; including Isaac’s new book series Tales
of Cydonia and Jacob’s past and upcoming film projects including Lepus and
Terrestrial. And don't forget to check out Lepus now available on the new DVD Death by VHS.

The boys are back for an extra episode this month. Why? Because they
can. they also felt that Cryptozoology was a good topic for Halloween
and wanted to talk about it. Cryptozoology, the science of searching for
and discovering new species sometimes considered mythical. Jacob and
Isaac spend an hour discussing the subject when they don't get
distracted.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Time Travel; it's one of the most used tropes in the world of Science
Fiction. When it comes down to facts vs. the fiction, how much is true?
Can you drive 88mph and end up in 1955? Can you enter a blue police box
and go hang out with Shakespeare? And what about wormholes? Jacob and
Isaac discuss that stuff and more with special guest Ryan Kirkish on the
latest episode of The Science Of Fiction.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Teleportation - The movement of atoms from one place in space and time
to another. There are many forms of teleportation. There's the Star
Trek method, The Fly method, the Stargate method, even the Nightcrawler
method. But what is real and what is fiction? This is what Jacob and
Isaac discuss today on The Science Of Fiction. Join them as they try to
uncover the truth about one of science's greatest mysteries. Then listen
to them shamelessly plug their own creative work - Isaac's book Tales
Of Cydonia Volume 1 and Jacob's DVD Death By VHS, both available this
month.

Click here to listen or right click and choose "Save As..." to download.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Since the early days of modern sci-fi, one of the Holy
Grails concerning our hopes for the future always has been to one day possess
the ability to transport an object, or even a person, from point A to point B
instantly… aka, teleportation.

But is it possible? And if it is, is it practicable?

The franchise that popularized teleportation the most was
Star Trek; which according to lore, teleportation was developed sometime during
the 22nd century. But in reality, who knows if teleportation will be
ready 150 years from now, or not. Today, in the early 21st century,
teleportation has been accomplished, but only on the sub-atomic level,
teleporting a whole Federation “away team” is another matter altogether.

Like a glorified fax machine, a teleported object would
be scanned, most likely destroying the original, and then transporting the
information to the desired location, where an exact copy would be constructed
out of the same kinds of atoms, in the same pattern. Assuming the copy was a
living organism, it would, in theory, never know that it was not the original,
unless told.

On Star Trek, teleportation is accomplished via the
“transporter” or the “trans-locator”, as referred to by one species on Star Trek Voyager… But we will spare my
co-host Jacob O’Neal’s sanity for now, and not get into the puerility of
Voyager at this time...

On Trek it is implied that the person being transporter
is moved alone the transporter beam itself, and reconstructed in a different
location. In reality, this would be less likely, as the original object would
be destroyed, or perhaps preserved during the initial scanning, with a
doppelgänger being constructed atom-by-atom in the new desired location.
Teleportation is really more of a form of long-distant replication.

Yet, it is still fun to imagine that people and things,
could be de-atomized here, with the original preserved and reconstructed there…
and maybe someday that will indeed be occurring, but maybe not by the 2150s
when the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise considered the technology new.

Teleportation has manifested itself in sci-fi in many
ways; everything from Star Trek as stated above, leading us to believe in the
amazing possibilities of the future; to the horrific consequences seen in the
1986 movie remake of The Fly; and even
in the science fiction and fantasy book series that I am currently writing
(Tales of Cydonia), I deal with a form of teleportation in the second
installment in the series; in which teleportation is used to travel through
both space and time...

But whatever the case may be, teleportation gives us
unique possibilities, both good and bad, which makes it very fun to think
about.

OK, but the real question is, if the societies in the
Star Trek universe could develop a transporter/trans-locator/teleporter by the
22nd century; then why has apparently no one developed it in the
world of Star Wars, when their super-advanced interplanetary society had been
around for 25,000 years by the time Luke Skywalker was born? I mean, instead of
having a long drawn out battle against the Death Star, they could have just
flown within teleportation range, and “beamed” a nuke into the core of the main
reactor! I guess, the rebel alliance preferred to rely on a species of
pre-industrial and pre-agricultural woodland bears to defeat the evil empire instead.
Which I would have been OK with if Lucas had not taken the totally awesome Ewok
victory song out of the end of the original version of Episode VI, replacing it with the total crap “more epic” sounding
song in the final scene for the special edition DVD release…

Wait… what were we talking about, oh, right…
teleportation.

Whatever the case may be; if the efforts of scientists
pursing real-life teleportation produce for good or ill, and prove possible or
not, teleportation is a staple of sci-fi. From causing a man to mutate with fly
DNA, to being used as a means to transport super heroes even faster around the
world as portrayed in The Justice League
Unlimited animated show, or accidently creating a Commander Riker doppelgänger
as seen in Star Trek The Next Generation,
who then went on to join the rebels fighting the Federation as well as the
Cardassian Empire; as seen in Star Trek
Deep Space Nine… teleportation is here to stay, at least in the land of
sci-fi.

And who knows, maybe someday the words of Commander La
Forge from Star Trek The Next Generation
as he spoke to the OCD ridden Lieutenant Barclay will come true… “Transporting
really is the safest way to travel.”

In the meantime, I am going to watch Star Wars again and
wonder why after 25,000 years they don’t have replicators or holodecks either…

Sincerely,

Isaac Hulke; co-host of The Science of Fiction with co-host Jacob O’Neal

PSBe sure to
listen to Jacob O’Neal and Isaac Hulke’s next podcast episode coming
mid-September all about the science, and science fiction, of teleportation.